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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137112">between the lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinitree/pseuds/Infinitree'>Infinitree</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Captain Underpants and the Confounding Chronicles of Counterpart Communication [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, its SADTAIN (Sad Captain) hours now</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 11:07:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinitree/pseuds/Infinitree</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <i>"The truth is a slippery thing."</i>
    <br/>
  </p>
</blockquote>(Or, the one where Captain Underpants realizes that those 'grounded biographies' are far from that... in the worst possible way.)
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Captain Underpants and the Confounding Chronicles of Counterpart Communication [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804579</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>between the lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Anonymous said: if your doing the Drabble challenge still, could you possibly do 38? ^^<br/>(“i work pretty hard around here, but you get all the credit.”)</p>
</blockquote>Here's a change of pace-- a requested fic drabble! It's absolutely wild how much I've written for this one fandom/AU in such a short time. It's also wild comparing this to <em>filler arc</em>, dynamics-wise.
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Here was something Benjamin Krupp figured out in regards to the whole switching thing: he could feel his body’s reactions to his counterpart’s emotions. It was like his entire body was an after image from looking away from something so hideously bright.</p>
<p>So when he resurfaces and feels that there’s a lump in his throat, did he know that his words were getting to <em>him.</em> And he latches onto that with all its worth.</p>
<p><em>I work hard around here, but you get all the credit.</em> He takes a deep breath before continuing. <em>You get all the glory of fighting the monster of the week, but I’m the one who has to clean your mess up by the end of the day. Must be nice, not having to care about real world consequences.</em></p>
<p>He hesitates and wonders when he’ll come back, if at all. Snap.</p>
<p>Splash.</p>
<p><em>Ugh,</em> that went up his nose. Benjamin flounders around as he takes in his surroundings. Living room. Five minutes, assuming he put new batteries in the wall clock. His pants were gone. The cassette was on top of his stomach.</p>
<p><em>“Of course I care,”</em> Captain insisted. <em>“It’s part and parcel of being a hero, Principal.”</em></p>
<p>He rolled his eyes-- he shouldn’t be surprised at the fact that he thought that <em>Principal</em> was his first name, but it still left him annoyed. Not enough to stop and correct him, but still. He sat himself up and fished for the nearest square of sticky notes and pen.</p>
<p>
  <em>A hero two kids made up and implanted into my brain.</em>
</p>
<p>His thumb and middle finger connect and are taut, ready to complete the motion. A part of him wonders why the hero continued to do this stupid song and dance in trying to communicate. An even smaller part questions why he was still bothering.</p>
<p>If nothing else, he was stubborn. He’ll see this through to the end.</p>
<p>Snap. Splash.</p>
<p>There was a moment of silence on the tape. <em>“...What? I-- I don’t understand.”</em></p>
<p>The clamminess in Benjamin’s hands begged to differ.</p>
<p><em>You’re not even a real person.</em> There was something of a sadistic glee welling in him as he wrote it down. <em>You’re just a flat gimmick character shambling around in my body pretending to be something you’re not.</em></p>
<p>This time he doesn’t hesitate to snap.</p><hr/>
<p>Captain Underpants wakes up to a terrible feeling he has no name for. The closest thing he could compare it to is that one caramel onion prank his sidekicks showed him one time-- it looked so good and sweet on the outside, but when you got down to it the taste was sharp and <em>hurt</em>.</p>
<p>It didn’t hurt as much as the note left behind, though.</p>
<p>“I’m... I’m <em>real,”</em> he insisted to no one. Not even the cassette was recording. He deliberately clenches his fists and releases them a few moments later. Wriggles his fingers. Makes a little hand shadow of a dog in the light of the setting sun.</p>
<p>And <em>then</em> he records because he’s finally calmed down enough. “Is this... is this some sort of trick?” Captain projects his voice as heroically as he can muster, but his voice cracks at the last word. He clears his throat. “I’m real as real can be!”</p>
<p>And if he hesitates to splash himself, well, good thing he was alone.</p>
<p>Snap.</p>
<p>
  <em>Then remember something from your past for me. Something from before you met those brats, and something they’ve never written down in their stupid comics.</em>
</p>
<p>“What does <em>that</em> prove?” He clutched the cassette recorder as tight as he could without breaking it, small fingertip-sized dents forming on its surface.</p>
<p>Splash. Snap.</p>
<p>
  <em>My point. If you can remember anything before or after the events of every issue then you can prove me wrong.</em>
</p>
<p>The hero’s expression twisted into something determined. He shut his eyes tight, recalling the events of one <strike>issue</strike> day. There was an infestation of snot monsters terrorizing the city <strike><em>which city, was it Piqua?</em></strike> that he defeated by corralling them all to a an underwear slingshot and hurling them to the sun. And then-- and then--</p>
<p>
  <em> <strike>The end.</strike> </em>
</p>
<p>At some point he laid on the ground, the bristles of the carpet floor making him itch and, oh, it was starting to be too much--</p>
<p>He remembered the crowds looked happy when the city was safe, but there were no <em><strike>speech balloons</strike></em> cheers. What did he do after that? <em>Where did he go after that?</em> How much time had passed in between those monster attacks?</p>
<p>Captain clutched his head with a soft whine, mentally scrambling at his memories for anything that wasn’t in a panel. He vaguely recalled his Origin <strike><em>Issue,</em></strike> but those memories were shredded apart into tiny, tiny pieces.</p>
<p>His head bumped into the leg of the coffee table. The glass of water he had been using to switch fell onto his forehead.</p><hr/>
<p>Benjamin Krupp resurfaced with a slight headache. More importantly, his face was red-hot with tears falling down his face. He picks himself up with a hand nursed where he bumped his head, eyeing the cassette on the table.</p>
<p>It was still recording. Seemed like that dunce, in his moment of distress had forgotten to stop it.</p>
<p>Benjamin picks it up. Rewinds it. Lets it play as he wipes his face from tears that weren’t his own. Most of the recording was incoherent, or just noises, but one moment stuck out. He nearly missed it, from how quiet the hero’s typically boisterous voice was.</p>
<p><em> “I’m real-- I’m-- I--”</em> there was the sound of shuffling, the fluttering of a cape, and the soft clunk of something being moved. <em>“M-- my backstory is real, and-- and the things I do are too, s-- so stop saying they’re not.” </em></p>
<p>For a brief moment, Benjamin wonders if tears could be enough to snap him back to himself. Did tears even count as water? How much would he need to cry? <em>Maybe,</em> he thought cruelly, if he makes the hero miserable enough, he’d cry every time he would have been brought out-- accidentally or otherwise-- and be brought back to himself.</p>
<p>Then again, he would have to contend with the fact that he would feel horrible every time he'd come back. <em>Not out of guilt,</em> he argued mentally. Regardless of whose feelings it was, he still had to feel it either way. He immediately brushes off those thoughts and let the background apathy and frustration suppress it.</p>
<p>Benjamin stuffs the cassette in a cabinet in his bedroom and lays down on his bed to a dreamless sleep.</p>
<p>His heart felt heavy in his chest.</p>
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